So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.
O’Hara asked Rohde, ‘Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?’
‘They would have built a telfer,’ said Rohde. ‘An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here – they need superchargers.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.
In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.
‘Someone’s been up here lately,’ observed O’Hara. ‘Supercharged or not. But I knew that.’
‘How?’ Rohde demanded.
‘The airstrip had been cleared of snow.’
Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. O’Hara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.
Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘I’ve got a flask of spirits. ‘I’ve been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?’
‘Let me have it,’ said Rohde.
O’Hara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. ‘Aguardiente,’ he said. ‘Not the best drink but it will do.’ He looked at O’Hara curiously. ‘Do you drink this?’
‘I’m a poor man,’ said O’Hara defensively.
Rohde smiled. ‘When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much,’ He looked across at Aguillar. ‘I think we save this for later.’ He recapped the flask and handed it back to O’Hara. As O’Hara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.
After a rest of half an hour they started off again. O’Hara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.
After the third stop O’Hara found that things were going better. His step felt lighter and his breathing eased, although the headache stayed with him. The stretcher-bearers found that they could carry for longer periods, and Aguillar had come round and was taking notice.
O’Hara mentioned this to Rohde, who pointed at the steep slopes about them. ‘We are losing a lot of height,’ he said. ‘It will get better now.’
After the fourth halt O’Hara and Forester were carrying the stretcher. Aguillar apologized in a weak voice for the inconvenience he was causing, but O’Hara forbore to answer – he needed all his breath for the job. Things weren’t that much better.
Forester suddenly stopped and O’Hara thankfully laid down the stretcher. His legs felt rubbery and the breath rasped in his throat. He grinned at Forester, who was beating his hands against his chest. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It should be warmer down in the valley.’
Forester blew on his fingers. ‘I hope so.’ He looked up at O’Hara. ‘You’re a pretty good pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flying in my time, but I don’t think I could do what you did yesterday.’
‘You might if you had a pistol at your head,’ said O’Hara with a grimace. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t leave it to Grivas – he’d have killed the lot of us, starting with me first.’
He looked past Forester and saw Rohde coming back up the road at a stumbling run, his gun in his hand. ‘Something’s happening.’
He went forward to meet Rohde, who gasped, his chest heaving. ‘There are huts here – I had forgotten them.’
O’Hara looked at the gun. ‘Do you need that?’
Rohde gave a stark smile. ‘It is possible, señor.’ He waved casually down the road with the pistol. ‘I think we should be careful. I think we should look first before doing anything. You, me, and Señor Forester.’
‘I think so too,’ said Forester. ‘Grivas said his pals would be around and this seems a likely place to meet them.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara, and looked about. There was no cover on the road but there was a jumble of rocks a little way back. ‘I think everyone else had better stick behind that lot,’ he said. ‘If anything does break, there’s no point in being caught in the open.’
They went back to shelter behind the rocks and O’Hara told everyone what was happening. He ended by saying, ‘If there’s shooting you don’t do a damned thing – you freeze and stay put. Now I know we’re not an army but we’re likely to come under fire all the same – so I’m naming Doctor Willis as second-in-command. If anything happens to us you take your orders from him.’ Willis nodded.
Aguillar’s niece was talking to Rohde, and as O’Hara went to join Forester she touched him on the arm. ‘Señor.’
He looked down at her. ‘Yes, señorita.’
‘Please be careful, you and Señor Forester. I would not want anything to happen to you because of us.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ said O’Hara. ‘Tell me, is your name the same as your uncle’s?’
‘I am Benedetta Aguillar,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I’m Tim O’Hara. I’ll be careful.’
He joined the other two and they walked down the road to the bend. Rohde said, ‘These huts were where the miners lived. This is just about as high as a man can live permanently – a man who is acclimatized such as our mountain indios. I think we should leave the road here and approach from the side. If Grivas did have friends, here is where we will find them.’
They took to the mountainside and came upon the camp from the top. A level place had been roughly bulldozed out of the side of the mountain and there were about a dozen timber-built huts, very much like the huts by the airstrip.
‘This is no good,’ said Forester. ‘We’ll have to go over this miniature cliff before we can get at them.’
‘There’s no smoke,’ O’Hara pointed out.
‘Maybe that means something – maybe it doesn’t,’ said Forester. ‘I think that Rohde and I will go round and come up from the bottom. If anything happens, maybe you can cause a diversion from up here.’
‘What do I do?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Throw stones?’
Forester shook with silent laughter. He pointed down the slope to beyond the camp. ‘We’ll come out about there. You can see us from here but we’ll be out of sight of anyone in the camp. If all’s clear you can give us the signal to come up.’ He looked at Rohde, who nodded.
Forester and Rohde left quietly and O’Hara lay on his belly, looking down at the camp.